


A Child of Winter

by TheColorBlue



Category: Disney Fairies
Genre: F/M, Secret of the Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-24
Updated: 2013-04-24
Packaged: 2017-12-09 10:25:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheColorBlue/pseuds/TheColorBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, a winter fairy’s wings shattered under the heat of the summer sun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Child of Winter

Back in the old days, when Lord Milori was quite a much younger fairy, he followed Clarion across the border between the Autumn and Winter Woods. His wings held up under the cool breezes of fall, but he was not prepared for the heat of the summer fields just beyond. His wings came apart like flakes of snow brought close to a flame. 

\--

Dewey, who was a middle-aged academic fairy back then, rather than the elderly person he would become in Tinker Bell’s day, studied the wing fragments under lens made of carved ice, and then shook his head. “I’m sorry, mi’lord, but there’s just nothing to it. The wings of a winter fairy—the stuff they’re made of—you can lookee her if ye like, but it’s substance that holds a crystalline structure that _must_ be kept under a certain temperature. Put them under heat, and the lattice falls apart, and there’s no gluing them back together, ‘m afraid.”

Milori, who was very young back then, had lost the love of his life, and lost the ability to fly, all in one day. Dewey patted him on the shoulder, awkward-like, and Milori covered his face with his hands and tried not to weep. 

\--

They gave him a companion owl to fly him through the woods. The owl was a handsome creature called Valorous, but Milori could not, in all practicality, use Val to get _everywhere_. 

Milori, who should have been fairy nobility, had to learn how to walk. 

It was not as though he’d never walked before—of course not—but no fairy relied solely on his or her own two feet to get from one place to the next. 

It was tiring: walking. 

While the other fairies carried out the usual duties and exercises of frosting the trees with ice, or caring for the animals, Milori went out into the woods. He could not fly, and there was little that a fairy without wings could do in the Winter Woods. 

His feet ached, at first, and he had to be careful when crossing snow drifts. The first few weeks, Val had to follow him above, everywhere, and would fly down to retrieve him when he got stuck in the snow. 

Milori learned how to climb, too. 

Calluses formed on his hands. In the beginning, he had blisters. They bled, and he wrapped them up in linens, and forced himself to keep climbing. Val would watch from the branches high above, where Milori was climbing through snow-covered underbrush. 

Milori’s arms grew stronger. 

He learned how to be afraid of heights. 

It was an unnatural: a fairy being afraid of being up too high, but one day Milori had gotten up into the highest branches of a low-growing bush, and then he’d looked down. He clung to the cool weight of the branch, and shut his eyes. 

For the first time in his life, Milori looked down, and he could not let go. 

\--

Once, Milori had Val fly him up to the highest branches of a tree, close to the borderlands. Val preened himself, and Milori stood, peering out intently at a horizon painted over by a setting sun. If he looked _hard,_ he could nearly see the golden glow of Pixie Hollow, fringed round by the pink, blossom-filled trees of Spring, and the sunflower-strewn fields of Summer. 

Milori felt something clench up in his chest then, and he sat down.

Clarion was out there, somewhere. She’d be beautiful, dressed all in gold, with her hair around her shoulders. One day, she would be Queen. 

He would not be there to see her crowning.

Milori shivered, and it was not from the cold. His back ached with the phantom pain of his wings.

He did not dare dream of ever seeing Clarion again.

He did not dare dream.


End file.
